Macguffin Games

IGDA Elections – Ann Burkett

February 10th, 2010 by Macguffin in Uncategorized

If you’re coming to this post without having seen the lead-in, you can find that post here.  It links to all the other assessments I’ve posted.  You can also find my disclaimer there – I’m on the Boston IGDA chapter’s board and support the candidacy of Darius Kazemi.

Ann Burkett

UPDATE – Ms. Burkett’s answers at the bottom.

Ms. Burkett’s statement has been written in a conversational style that at times makes it somewhat difficult to follow, at least for me.

Ms. Burkett is the chair of the Silicon Valley IGDA chapter, and this is the cornerstone of her campaign – most of her statement is framed around it.  She cites, amongst other things, a roughly 1000% increase from 75 to 720 people on their Google mailing group in her tenure as indicators of her ability to grow and help run a chapter.  She also implies that that chapter growth will help the Quality of Life issue, and that it is a key element to the IGDA’s health.

I also want to know more specifics about how building the chapters will help the IGDA and its members, and how she plans to go about doing this.  Specific concrete proposals would be great.

Again with this candidate, we are given no straight answer to the question of how much time she would spend on their IGDA duties.  Combined with her stated ambivalence about running (“How do I feel about running for the board? Somewhat ambivalent.”), this perhaps leaves some big concerns about her commitment to being on the IGDA board.

On the final question of how she would get things done in a short time and on a small budget, Ms. Burkett assures us she can do so, and then turns the question around to ask why things are always done in that manner.  While a fair question, it leaves the initial question of how she would cope with that situation.  More importantly, she also leaves unanswered the question of how she would go about accomplishing her goals.  Again, concrete specifics are lacking.

Questions for Ms. Burkett:

• If, as you say, the biggest problem facing the IGDA right now is jobs, what direct action can the IGDA take to help this situation?
• Can you elaborate on your thought that strong local chapters would help with the Quality of Life issues many developers face?
• Can you please give us specific proposals on how you plan to strengthen the local IGDA chapters?
• Can you please answer the question of how much time you would plan to spend on the IGDA, and how much you think is appropriate?  Also, how would this impact (or be impacted by) your work with the Silicon Valley chapter?
• How many people usually attend the Silicon Valley IGDA chapter meetings?  What were the numbers like when you started as coordinator?  While not the end-all-be-all indicator, I think it’s an important piece of data in judging the chapter’s overall growth.
• What role did the other chapter leaders play in the chapter’s growth, and what role do they play on a regular basis in its operation?
• What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

Ms. Burkett answered many of these questions in the comments.  Here is her reply:

Hi well first of all it was kind of some people let me know about the “review” and even kinder to have shown support.

There are few that have been as committed to building the chapter as I have and the data on chapter growth supports that. There is nothing more concrete than data. No yapping about how much time one would or wouldn’t spend or how one juggles is really relevant, what is really relevant is results.

Talk is cheap. Ambition is cheap too. Criticism is exceedingly cheap. Action is expensive and rare.

I’m ambivalent because I’m happy doing what I do. Would think that’s a good rather than a bad thing.

Yes I can deal with low budgets and tight schedules however if the IGDA is complaining about a crunch time mentality in the industry they should address their own. I don’t know how to be any clearer.

As far as jobs, fun, connection and quality of life go, to site one example, we had a game project connection night which was oriented towards people finding jobs, and it was during an ugly ugly time when people thought the economy was falling off the cliff. Noah Falstein was awesome, check it out here http://www.siliconvalleyigda.org/projectnights/ and yes I do know people who astoundingly did make connections and get jobs even in that wretched environment through the networking on that and other events and friendships through the IGDA chapter. Have gotten feedback from other chapters which was “can you come help with our chapter event” to which I respond “plane ticket and I’m there”. Have also stated it’s a personal goal this year to build a widget that separates jobs by locations for people and dump it into the blog. For now we have a nice linked in jobs section which is active http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1853608 look under jobs

This is a volunteer position, lots of work, lots of criticism, unpaid time and huge expectations. In fact it seems like the more people promise usually the less likely they are even to attempt delivery.

So I want to be very careful about what I focus on and not pretend I can change the economy or labor laws to get a vote and instead focus on things I have some inkling how to improve like how chapters touch peoples lives and do some good for them.

The IGDA went through quite a lot of upheaval last year and it was probably appropriate for the chapters to maintain their independence, I know ours did. They IGDA came out on the correct side of most of the upheaval and now seems like an appropriate time to work to strengthen the chapters and the central IGDA.

I would be committed towards active chapter enlargement (which I am proven to do well) and taking that to the next step with the help of others which is connecting strong chapters to the IGDA and using that to make quality of life improvement.

Money and the chapters is something I’ve been very straightforward about saying is an issue and not just the issue the blogger mentions. Developing sources of income in conjunction with the chapters would be a serious goal. I have a high level idea of events or activities that might fit. It would make sense to develop them further if elected.

And if I don’t get elected, sounds good too – more attention what I do now, up to you all.

Tags: igda